


Since We've No Place to Go

by ashtopop



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Battle Couple, F/M, Snowball Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 04:23:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8875807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashtopop/pseuds/ashtopop
Summary: When snow falls in Whitestone.Originally written for the Perc'ahlia Festival of Happiness on Tumblr, prompted by dagger--dagger--dagger!





	

Pike is the first to fall.

She gasps and falls to the ground, clutching at her chest in exaggerated agony, the snow spattered across her sweater the mark of a killing blow. She leaves a small, Pike-sized print in the thick blanket of snow that had covered Whitestone in the night, small enough any passerby would think the mark was another child’s snow angel.

“Fight on, Vox Machina,” she calls with her last words, her hand reaching weakly upwards, but the children of Whitestone are unrelenting. They duck and dive from their forts around the Sun Tree, and the remaining members of Vox Machina are surrounded in moments by giggles and shouts, light footprints marring deep, white snow yet unmarked in their battle.

Vax has a snowball in each hand, his wide stance aiming to protect Keyleth from incoming missiles. Two of his snowballs find purchase on older children who plop to the ground, grinning, but his rogue abilities meet their match in a toddler who asks him to make a real snow angel with her. He shrugs to Keyleth as the little girl takes his hand and leads him from the battlefield, fingers of her other hand in her mouth and her older siblings looking on approvingly. It was a glorious fight, he thinks, as she coos over the marks his defined feather wings leave in the snow. A better fight than any they’ve fought in a long time.

Keyleth, deprived of her body guard, sends tiny bursts of snowflakes on cantrip gusts of wind, delighting the children as they dash around the square, bobbing and weaving between rough fort constructions. The gusts chase children from their boltholes, ruffling their big, hand-me-down winter coats and reddening noses and cheeks. She’s beginning to gain territory for Vox Machina until a large, wet mound of snow lands on her head from above, shaken from the Sun Tree by a small gnomish form suddenly visible in the bright glare off the snow, his limbs wrapped fully around a branch of the tree.

“Scanlan!” Keyleth splutters, snow gathering around her antler crown and in the long strands of her red hair. Scanlan shrugs, a grin stretching across his face, and returns to invisibility. He’d been invisible since the beginning of the fight, so if anyone in Whitestone found snowmen making lewd or rude gestures, they would know exactly whom to suspect. Keyleth uses a slightly stronger spell in his last known direction, his small body making a satisfying dent in the deep snow beneath the tree as he flickers back to visibility with a groan.

Grog storms the largest of the children’s forts, a flurry of snowballs peppering his chest as he tromps toward it, knees lifting almost to his chest as his steps devour the distance between them. He takes each snowball like a bullet but keeps moving, crashing into their front defenses and shattering the line of children. He grabs two by their mitten strings as he bellows his death throes, decrying the agony of falling at the hands of children. He lays in the snow where he fell, but two children perch on his shoulders to make sure he doesn’t come back for vengeance—a tactic he praises, telling them all they will be fearsome warriors and strategists.

The children scold Grog when he reaches for his ale, insisting he’s _supposed to be dead!_

“Oh, right,” Grog responds, making a raspy noise at the back of his throat and letting his tongue loll out of his mouth. The children giggle behind their mittens, affecting solemnity over his death bed of quickly melting snow. If he begins readying massive snowballs for them from the afterlife, they aren’t going to tell anyone.

The ranged fighters of Vox Machina are holding their own against the onslaught of frosty attacks, back to back in the corner of the square, trading creation and aiming of snowballs. Percy’s coat flutters in the slight wind, and Vex leans to gather ammunition in each hand. They switch at a signal none but Vox Machina recognize, Vex launching two new volleys at the encroaching army of children.

“Four!” Percy shouts, voice edged with rough laughter like even it was surprised. “What are you on, Vex?”

She stands, ducking around him as he crouches, lobbing another snowball at a nearby child, who ducks around the corner of a building.

“Three,” she says.

“You’re going to lose your bet,” he says. She cuts a look at him, because despite his poise and upbringing she would have sworn that was a taunt. As she does, however, she notices a stream of children sneaking around the building beside them.

“They’re on us, Percy! ” Vex calls, her voice carrying slightly farther than she would allow against their usual opponents. The children surrounding the pair grin, packing snowballs in their woolen mittens and preparing to launch. At first the children had been hesitant to attack the Lord and Baroness of Whitestone, and even now Percy worries he’s kindled a spark of anti-authority their parents won’t thank him for.

“Well…” Percy starts, pushing his steamed-up glasses back onto his nose with two leather-gloved fingers. “I suppose-“

Vex is suddenly before him, and something cold and wet splats into the back of his neck, droplets flying into his hair and running down the inside of his shirt beneath the coat. Vex shakes her hand of the evidence, a smirk on her lips.

“Sorry,“ she whispers, her eyes alight with anything but apology. “I guess my hand slipped.” The snow trickles down his back, crystals settling at his waistband, and he shivers at the icy sensation.

“A draw, then?” Percy asks, eyebrow cocked, ignoring the slide of melting snow. “Four and four.” A slow smile crosses his face and Vex is instantly suspicious, recognizing the clockwork of Percy’s mind whirring.

He steps closer to her, his breath warming the cheeks exposed beneath her hat and scarf. His fingers find the fabric around her mouth and tug it down, blue eyes never leaving hers—wide with stunned disbelief. He leans forward, tilting his head down to her, his lips almost touching hers, and whispers.

“Five.”

She doesn’t mind the snow trickling down her neck or the lost bet, or even the chorus of children’s theatrical reactions while they stand breathing each others air, the heat of each warming the chill of the other. He doesn’t kiss her, but the promise is there, his thumb at her lower lip and hand lifting her chin.

“Would you… care for hot cocoa? Or tea, perhaps? Back at the castle?” he asks, voice low. She steps to the side, looping her arm in his.

“Of course, darling. I know just the thing to warm us up.”

And she winks.

**Author's Note:**

> throw a snowball at unrepentant winter lover [considermehacked on tumblr](http://considermehacked.tumblr.com)


End file.
